Described are navigational systems for vehicles including modular, field-swappable and field-configurable components and a plurality of operational modes.

In one aspect of the present disclosure, an apparatus for locating a mobile railway asset is provided that includes a power source, GNSS circuitry configured to utilize electrical power from the power source to receive GNSS data, and a controller operatively coupled to the power source and the GNSS circuitry. The controller has a power saving mode wherein the controller inhibits the GNSS circuitry from receiving GNSS data and a standard accuracy mode wherein the controller permits the GNSS circuitry to receive GNSS data for a first time period. The controller has a higher accuracy mode wherein the controller permits the GNSS circuitry to receive GNSS data for a second time period longer than the first time period, and subsequently across multiple instances, in order to collect more GNSS data that can be qualified, filtered, sorted, and averaged to produce a more accurate result.

There is provided a coordinate output method capable of suppressing the influence of a positioning error (jump) of a float solution in a case where interferometric positioning by RTK method is applied to positioning of a moving body. Current coordinates of a moving body are estimated based on previous coordinates of the moving body and information on a speed of the moving body. In addition, interferometric wave positioning is executed based on the positioning data of a base station and the positioning data of a positioning station to calculate the current coordinates of the moving body as either a fix solution or a float solution. In a case where the fix solution may not be calculated after the fix solution is calculated for a predetermined time or more, the coordinates of the moving body estimated from the information on a speed are output.

A reinforcement information adjustment unit reduces an amount of information in reinforcement information by combining: update cycle adjustment processing to set an update cycle of the reinforcement information to be an integer multiple of a predetermined update cycle; geographic interval error value adjustment processing to reduce the number of geographic interval error values by selecting from among a plurality of the geographic interval error values each of which is an error at every predetermined geographic interval out of a plurality of error values, a geographic interval error value at every geographic interval that is an integer multiple of the predetermined geographic interval; and bit count adjustment processing to reduce a bit count of the error value for each error value. A reinforcement information output unit outputs, to an output destination, reinforcement information after being reduced in the amount of information by the reinforcement information adjustment unit.

A receiver or method uses an offset vector to provide seamless switching between a real-time kinematic (RTK) mode and a precise positioning mode (e.g., precise point positioning, PPP) mode. An offset module or data processor is arranged to determine an offset between precise position and the RTK position estimate. Upon loss of the RTK signal, switching to a precise position mode based a last available RTK position (e.g., if the precise position mode is converged on a position solution with resolved ambiguities of the carrier phase), wherein the next precise position estimate is compensated by the offset or reference frame bias to avoid a jump or discontinuity in the next precise position estimate.

A method for selecting localization algorithms in a vehicle, wherein the localization algorithms, in particular for satellite navigation or vehicle dynamics sensors, are selected on the basis of driving states.

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method of receiving and decoding military L2 or L1 P(Y) or M-Code signals and re-transmitting these in real-time as legacy L1-C/A signals. The decoding process of the P(Y) or M-code is done through the programming by the user of secret keys into an embodiment of this invention. These military code signals are then decoded into standard PVT/PNT information which are typically transmitted on an industry standard serial port and format, which are then re-encoded using a real-time GPS simulator sub-system as legacy L1-C/A code signals, and transmitted to the output of the embodiment of this invention as a standard antenna signal. This output signal could be made compatible with any commercial L1-C/A code GPS receiver, and may thus be decoded by the GPS receiver as if the signals had been received directly from the Satellites. In one application of this embodiment of this present invention the legacy GPS receiver does not know the difference and cannot differentiate between signals generated by this embodiment of the present invention versus true GPS satellite signals received by a real GPS antenna. This embodiment of the present invention allows efficient replacement of legacy GPS antennae without having to change any of the system, setup, cabling, or programming of the legacy GPS receiver system. Another embodiment of this present invention may receive Glonass, BeiDou, or Galileo signals, and output legacy GPS signals to allow a glueless retrofit of legacy GPS receivers to Glonass, BeiDou, or Galileo compatibility.

A reinforcement information adjustment unit reduces an amount of information in reinforcement information by combining: update cycle adjustment processing to set an update cycle of the reinforcement information to be an integer multiple of a predetermined update cycle; geographic interval error value adjustment processing to reduce the number of geographic interval error values by selecting from among a plurality of the geographic interval error values each of which is an error at every predetermined geographic interval out of a plurality of error values, a geographic interval error value at every geographic interval that is an integer multiple of the predetermined geographic interval; and bit count adjustment processing to reduce a bit count of the error value for each error value. A reinforcement information output unit outputs, to an output destination, reinforcement information after being reduced in the amount of information by the reinforcement information adjustment unit.

The invention discloses an improved GNSS receiver which determines a location of the receiver by combining a first location determined either from the standard PVT and/or from a positioning aid like a map matching algorithm, inertial navigation system, WiFi localization system or other, and a second location determined by integrating the velocity from the standard PVT. The combination is based on a weighting of the error budgets of the first position and the second location. The improved receiver is preferably based on a standard receiver with an add-on software module which receives and processes data transmitted from the standard receiver by, for example, NMEA messages. The improved receiver allows a determination of a more precise and smoother trajectory in a simple way.

A Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver includes a wideband signal correlator and a multipath mitigator. The wideband signal correlator generates wideband correlation signals of at least one of a plurality of GNSS signals with respect to corresponding locally generated code replica signals in which a bandwidth of the wideband signal correlation module is at least about 20 MHz. The multipath mitigator determines a Line of Sight (LOS) signal from the wideband correlation signals. The GNNS receiver may include a narrowband signal correlator to generate narrowband correlation signals of the at least one GNSS signal with respect to corresponding locally generated code replica signals in which a bandwidth of the narrowband signal correlation module is less than about 6 MHz. The multipath mitigator further corrects a range and range-rate measurement generated from the narrowband correlation signals based on a code phase and a carrier estimated based on the LOS signal.